Southern Comfort
by emilycare
Summary: A riff on Lucy & Wyatt at the Alamo, and a call that might have taken place later that night. For #LyattWeek, day 1: growing feelings.


"Where's Wyatt?" Lucy could feel the impact of the mortars. Her heartbeat was racing. Rufus helped a young girl down through the opening he'd blown open to the aqueduct beneath the church in the Alamo. Scannning the faces around her, Lucy put together the terrible arithmetic that the missing soldier's face laid bare.

"I'll go get him!"

"Lucy, wait!" Rufus reached out to her, realizing what she meant to do but too late to stop her. He gazed after her, wondering if he should in turn run after her to pull her out of the line of fire, but the arrival of more panicked and ashen-faced women and children looking to him for direction made him realize what his task had to be. _Good luck,_ Lucy, he thought.

Wyatt was totally focused on the conflict before him. The emotions that had gripped him since entering the fort had grown until a knot the size of a boulder lodged itself in his gut. His war-won antennae for movement and trajectory reached out. His senses brought information to his hand before his mind of where to shoot, the need to re-load, the sounds of additional troops advancing. A small part of his mind flickered to his friends, their escape fed what remained of his sense of hope. They would bring survivors to safe haven. They would return to the present and carry on without him. His thoughts short-circuited there, a shot a bit too close jerking him back to the present. Along with all the fears and hard emotions that blocked his mind from continuing on just what it meant for his team mates to return home without him.

Suddenly he saw flailing arms and skirt-clad legs pounding towards him. Dark hair and flashing brown eyes. Lucy. What the hell was she doing there?

"Lucy!?"

"Wyatt—come on now. Rufus has opened up the passage, it's time to leave."

"You go. I'm staying here to make sure you can make it."

"No, Wyatt, you'll die!" A mortar fell near them. Without thinking Wyatt pulled Lucy close and cupped his arm around her trying to shelter her head. The feel of her slim waist in his arms felt right. The feeling in him of surety that he was doing the right thing grew stronger.

"Lucy, I've got nothing to go back for. I've lost everyone I love. And you don't need me anymore. Let me do this one good thing and help save you."

The realization of what Wyatt meant, what his feelings had led him to dawned on Lucy. She looked into his eyes. He seemed to be pleading with her to understand. To let him free of the misery he'd been living in. She remembered the sorrow he'd felt when Kate Drummond died. How the loss of his wife drained all the life from his vivid blue eyes. They desperate longing each time he was confronted with the possibility of her rescue through time. And then when it didn't happen... She felt the weight of the guilt he was carrying and saw that he wanted to set it down. But deep inside her she felt another feeling: conviction that his life must not end here. And guilt, herself, at prying this chance for peace from this walking dead man she'd so come to rely on.

"Wyatt, we need you. I need you." She didn't know where the words came from, except that she meant them as deeply as she had meant anything she had ever spoken. She was desperate. He had to come home with them. He had to live. At his nod, she felt like she would burst into tears. But she couldn't take the time. She only had room for a brief moment of gratitude, and a whispered prayer as she ran beside Wyatt carrying the boy. Together they were carried on the currents of history, rejoining the path that they had known in their timeline.

* * *

Lucy lay in her bed staring up at the ceiling. Lucy was wide awake and sleep was nowhere close. She could still feel the sensation of her mother's hand whispering across her hair. The emotional tumult of their time at the Alamo had sent Lucy reeling. As if the upsets of time travel had not been enough: losing her sister; regaining her mother; learning that she had to risk life and limb to recapture lost, life-threatening technology beyond her comprehension; and having these strange hints from their enemy Flynn that she was far more entwined in the mystery than she could know. Add to that the loss of life at the Texas fort, their near deaths, and the razor thin knife's edge that Wyatt's life had balanced on. She closed her eyes, feeling again her hands framing Wyatt's face, not really able to remember what she had said to him, but feeling again that flood of relief when he assented to returning with her. When she and Rufus backed him up back at Mason Industries, she had felt again that confidence that he needed to be with them. And something else...

Lucy shook her head. She rolled over and started running through the year and inaugural dates for US presidents as she often did when she had trouble sleeping. But the haunted look in Wyatt's eyes came back to her. How he felt he abandoned his fellow soldiers. The story he told to Jim Bowie. Lucy glanced at the clock by her bed. Red numbers glowed, letting her know it was not quite midnight. Her fingers itched for her phone and a sudden urge came over her.

Slipping out from beneath her covers, she pulled on her silk wrap that hung in her closet. She groped around ineffectively in the dark for her phone, then clicked on the lamp on her bedside table. She pulled up Wyatt's number from her contacts, hesitated a moment, then punched the green "call" button. Stood looking out of her window at the city lights. Holding her breath, not sure if she wanted him to pick up or not. Realizing she had no idea what to say to his answering machine if she did get shunted to messages.

"Hi." She heard his voice and she felt relief again. And a warm feeling of affection filled her, to her surprise. She pushed it away and spoke with a mischievous tone to her voice.

"Hi yourself." She spoke into the phone and heard sound in the background from the speaker. Murmured voices and glasses clinking. "You out for a nightcap, soldier?"

"Lucy..." his whiskey-warmed voice rolled over the syllables of her name. "After a day like this, I needed a little lubrication. And it seemed like the right thing to toast our survival."

Lucy sat back on her bed. She leaned back against her pillows and snuggled in. "And raise a glass to toast fallen friends?"

The background sounds continued as Wyatt hesitated. "Yes. That, too."

Guilt and remorse licked through Lucy. "I'm sorry, Wyatt. I—I know I dragged you back. And you'd even gotten yourself fired from this crazy thing. I'm sorry if..." She wasn't sure how to say more. _I'm sorry if you didn't want to live? I'm sorry I kept you from living a normal life again, if you could?_

But Wyatt cut into her thoughts, "...sorry if you backed me up when I most needed you, not once, but twice? Nothing to apologize for. I have you and Rufus to thank." Voices interfered. Someone was asking Wyatt a question. He gave back a negative response.

"Wyatt, sorry to bother you. It's late."

"No trouble, Lucy. Thanks for calling," Wyatt found his alcohol loosened tongue continuing on when his mind told him to leave it at that, "It's good to hear your voice, Lucy."

Lucy's cheeks turned pink, for no reason she could name. "You, too, Wyatt."

After they said their good nights, Lucy turned off the light and pulled the covers back over her. Her body was relaxed. Thoughts of James Garfield's inauguration faded swiftly into oblivion, and she fell asleep remembering the light that she'd seen kindle in Wyatt's eyes.


End file.
